Airport transport access (split from news thread)

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Nort · #31 Post by **Nort** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 9:34 pm

dbl96 wrote:There has been much talk on here about the viability of a airport to city loop. Iv'e taken a different approach taking in the western suburbs, see what you think.

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/2hnrp

Once the line is built express Airport-City services could also be offered

Your line appears to cross a runway.

dbl96 · #32 Post by **dbl96** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 4:49 pm

Nort wrote:
dbl96 wrote:There has been much talk on here about the viability of a airport to city loop. Iv'e taken a different approach taking in the western suburbs, see what you think.

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/2hnrp

Once the line is built express Airport-City services could also be offered
Your line appears to cross a runway.

That could be fixed, anyway its underground in that section anyway

Nort · #33 Post by **Nort** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 7:11 pm

That seems incredibly excessive. Why not have it travel along Marion Road and Sir Donald Bradman Drive instead?

edit: is this a train line, or a train/tram route like the one proposed for Semaphore?

fifty · #34 Post by **fifty** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 8:19 pm

Speaking of trains/trams to Adelaide Airport, Melbourne airport has just released plans for a new terminal, specifically including allowance for a train connection with underground section based on the verdict of the ongoing Dept. of Transport study of this.

http://melbourneairport.com.au/About-Me ... ogram.html

dbl96 · #35 Post by **dbl96** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 12:13 pm

The majority of the route would be underground, except for along the current Grange Line, which has been incorporated. It will share the Outer Harbour tracks from Woodville to the city

tanner1987 · #36 Post by **tanner1987** » Sun Jun 03, 2012 9:34 pm

While I support the expansion of the rail network throughout Adelaide, just NOT to the Airport.

I think that the airport should be planned to move out to RAAF Edinburgh, in the long term(10/20 yrs down the track)

My reasons being:

-The Gawler Line already runs close to RAAF Edinburgh, making a short branch line relatively cheap and easy to make.
-RAAF Edinburgh can be expanded much easier that Adelaide Airport. a paraller runway and a major upgrade of the cross runway could easily be done.
-If fast express trains ran on the route the trip could be done in less than 30mins.
-There are no curfews at RAAF edinburgh as there are very few nearby residents. Several airlines' schedules are already hampered by Adelaide's curfew.
-Aircraft noise would be eliminated near North Adelaide etc.
-The RAAF already share airports around the country with civilian operations eg. Learmonth, Darwin, Townsville, Newcastle

I know this is throwing a spanner in the works, but I don't see how it isn't the best solution. I look forward to the debate.

Nathan · #37 Post by **Nathan** » Sun Jun 03, 2012 9:56 pm

tanner1987 wrote:If fast express trains ran on the route the trip could be done in less than 30mins.

That's just it. One of Adelaide Airports strengths is it's proximity to the CBD, and general accessibility for people leaving all over the metro area. Currently you can get from the city to the airport in roughly 10mins. Having shuttled family from the airport to North Adelaide, who are more used to getting from the Western side of Tokyo to Narita Airport, it's definitely a big tick.

Aidan · #38 Post by **Aidan** » Sun Jun 03, 2012 11:05 pm

tanner1987 wrote:While I support the expansion of the rail network throughout Adelaide, just NOT to the Airport.

I think that the airport should be planned to move out to RAAF Edinburgh, in the long term(10/20 yrs down the track)

My reasons being:

-The Gawler Line already runs close to RAAF Edinburgh, making a short branch line relatively cheap and easy to make.
-RAAF Edinburgh can be expanded much easier that Adelaide Airport. a paraller runway and a major upgrade of the cross runway could easily be done.
-If fast express trains ran on the route the trip could be done in less than 30mins.
-There are no curfews at RAAF edinburgh as there are very few nearby residents. Several airlines' schedules are already hampered by Adelaide's curfew.
-Aircraft noise would be eliminated near North Adelaide etc.
-The RAAF already share airports around the country with civilian operations eg. Learmonth, Darwin, Townsville, Newcastle

I know this is throwing a spanner in the works, but I don't see how it isn't the best solution. I look forward to the debate.

tanner1987, you're not the first to suggest this, and somewhere on this board there's an entire thread of proposals to move the airport. Moving it to Edinburgh is more sensible than many of those, but it's still a complete non starter.

A 30 minute journey time by train (optimistic when you factor in waiting time) is still much slower than the time it takes to get to the existing airport. Many people have early morning flights, and getting there by train wouldn't be practical. And Edinburgh takes ages to get to from the southern suburbs.

Adelaide Airport's runway was extended a few years ago, and there's unlikely to be any need to extend it further. It's predicted to be sufficient to meet our capacity requirements for many decades to come. If it turns out not to be, a short parallel runway within the existing airport boundary is the most practical solution.

Adelaide Airport was designed to enable aircraft to take off into the prevailing winds. Edinburgh was not.

Adelaide airport has been around a while, those who are most bothered by aircraft noise won't be the ones in the areas that get most aircraft noise. Eliminating the curfew would be far less controversial than moving the airport.

And Adelaide Airport is a significant source of land value in the area. Adelaide City would not be such a good place to do business if it didn't have such convenient airport access. For businesses it's probably our biggest advantage over Melbourne.

Vee · #39 Post by **Vee** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 11:36 am

Nathan wrote:
tanner1987 wrote:If fast express trains ran on the route the trip could be done in less than 30mins.
That's just it. One of Adelaide Airports strengths is it's proximity to the CBD, and general accessibility for people leaving all over the metro area. Currently you can get from the city to the airport in roughly 10mins. Having shuttled family from the airport to North Adelaide, who are more used to getting from the Western side of Tokyo to Narita Airport, it's definitely a big tick.

Nathan and Aidan make good points in favour of the current site for Adelaide Airport. Accessibility and short travel times to the CBD are a huge benefit for business people, visitors and residents. It's a mighty tick for tourism, not only for our international visitors eg attending conventions, short trip to hotels for city or stopover for regional visits, but also national visitation eg indulgence tourism for a few days/weekend or sporting trips.

Edinburgh is a very long and costly trip for visitors and even longer for locals living far south of the city. Imagine having to get to the airport before 5am? By train - forget it. By taxi - ouch!
Even some locals might need to spend a night in the airport hotel at Edinburgh to avoid having to get up at an unearthly hour for an early morning flight.

Adelaide airport is a gem, location-wise, and definitely one of the good things going for our state.

tanner1987 · #40 Post by **tanner1987** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 2:40 pm

Fair enough replies guys; I suppose we can agree to disagree. Like anything in life there's no perfect solution so I guess the argument can be summarised by:

Pro Adelaide
-Central location
-Into wind runway(negligible benefit)

Pro Edinburgh
-Close railway line
-Room for further expansion
-No curfew
-No noise over the city(minor benefit)

It seems people here really value the central location, whereas I'd rather sit on a train, and go a little further. A couple of things worth pointing out though. Edinburgh also has a cross runway 04-22 that is placed into the prevailing winds(similar to Adelaide's 05-23, not that it's even a big deal). It's only grass and quite short, but could easily be sealed, extended and even a parallel runway made. Adelaide wouldn't be able to get a parallel runway of equal length to the main 10,000' runway without significant aquisision of land(not that it needs it. The single runway is doing fine. Hence why my idea would be to move once it's out-grown in 10-20yrs or whenever).Thanks for the replies.

#41 Post by **monotonehell** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 6:25 pm

tanner1987 wrote:Fair enough replies guys; I suppose we can agree to disagree.

No you're wrong (lol just jokes

)

30 minutes by train... from Adelaide maybe - There's a large proportion of the population south of the CBD. So Edinburgh is more like 1.5-0.5hours away from a majority of the populated area.

-Close railway line - only a benefit if you're considering moving it, so a moot point.
-Room for further expansion - a good point.
-No curfew & -No noise over the city(minor benefit) - Well there's a lot of housing near Edinburgh, so there would be a lot of noise complaints there too. The only difference being that the airport would be there second. Airforce movements are less frequent than domestic.

Also the proximity to Parafield would greatly affect air traffic. Parafield is one of Australia's most busy airports.

crawf · #42 Post by **crawf** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 2:20 am

I know it's been mentioned a billion times but what about Gilman?. I think thats the future site for a new airport. Lots of flat land, no nearby homes, closer to the main population area that could be connected by an expressway and high speed train link to the city.

At the moment I am happy with the current location and facilities, it serves the state well and extremely handy to get too. And just think if AAL was relocated and that land was sold off, it would probably swamp the housing and office market and possibly kill off construction in the city centre. But eventually (25 years+) I do want to see AAL relocated.

tanner1987 · #43 Post by **tanner1987** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 5:40 pm

crawf wrote:I know it's been mentioned a billion times but what about Gilman?

While Gillman would have great transport connections, I'm afraid that it's too close to both Parafield and Edinburgh.

99% of the time airliners do a straight-in approach, usually via an Instrument Landing System(ILS) approach. This involves about 15km or more of line up with the runway. Factor this distance into airspace and it just doesn't work.

For this same reason there is no ILS approach onto runway 36 Edinburgh, due to the proximity to Parafield(And even Adelaide). I think upgrading runway 04-22 Edinburgh would solve this problem however.

Nort · #44 Post by **Nort** » Sun Jun 10, 2012 2:24 am

tanner1987 wrote:Fair enough replies guys; I suppose we can agree to disagree. Like anything in life there's no perfect solution so I guess the argument can be summarised by:

Pro Adelaide
-Central location
-Into wind runway(negligible benefit)

Pro Edinburgh
-Close railway line
-Room for further expansion
-No curfew
-No noise over the city(minor benefit)

It seems people here really value the central location, whereas I'd rather sit on a train, and go a little further. A couple of things worth pointing out though. Edinburgh also has a cross runway 04-22 that is placed into the prevailing winds(similar to Adelaide's 05-23, not that it's even a big deal). It's only grass and quite short, but could easily be sealed, extended and even a parallel runway made. Adelaide wouldn't be able to get a parallel runway of equal length to the main 10,000' runway without significant aquisision of land(not that it needs it. The single runway is doing fine. Hence why my idea would be to move once it's out-grown in 10-20yrs or whenever).Thanks for the replies.

If Adelaide has expanded to the point where the current site is insufficient then it would probably make more sense to have a second airport built rather than entirely moving the existing one.

Your points regarding things like the train line are largely irrelevant as well, the Glenelg tram line passes close to Adelaide Airport and extending it to the airport would like cost a similar amount.

it's the type of thing that won't be cost-effective for at least 20-30 years if ever, but if Adelaide city was to greatly expand a high speed monorail (I know, I know haha) could potentially give us an airport ten minutes travel from the CBD. That's the type of airport distance that many cities would kill for.

Aidan · #45 Post by **Aidan** » Sun Jun 10, 2012 4:22 pm

tanner1987 wrote:Fair enough replies guys; I suppose we can agree to disagree.

No, not unless you refuse to listen to reason!

Like anything in life there's no perfect solution so I guess the argument can be summarised by:

Pro Adelaide
-Central location
-Into wind runway(negligible benefit)

You can add room for further expansion to the list!

Pro Edinburgh
-Close railway line

Are you referring to the Gawler Line? Or what's currently the interstate line? Because the former isn't actually that close.

-Room for further expansion

What you mean is it would be possible to buy up adjacent agricultural land to expand - but there's not much room spare within the existing boundaries.

-No curfew

The case for a curfew if operations were moved there would be stronger than the case for a curfew currently is.

-No noise over the city(minor benefit)

It seems people here really value the central location, whereas I'd rather sit on a train, and go a little further.

Are you saying you prefer airports to be further out? Or that a train service to the airport would make uo for it being further out?

A couple of things worth pointing out though. Edinburgh also has a cross runway 04-22 that is placed into the prevailing winds(similar to Adelaide's 05-23, not that it's even a big deal). It's only grass and quite short, but could easily be sealed, extended and even a parallel runway made. Adelaide wouldn't be able to get a parallel runway of equal length to the main 10,000' runway without significant aquisision of land(not that it needs it. The single runway is doing fine. Hence why my idea would be to move once it's out-grown in 10-20yrs or whenever).Thanks for the replies.

What I really don't understand is why you think it would only be 10-20yrs. Melbourne Airport, like Adelaide Airport, still only has one main runway and one short crosswind runway. Do you think we'll be as big in 20 years as Melbourne is now? Or do you just think we'll be flying a lot more? (OK the comparison's not perfect as Melbourne also has Avalon, but that's not used very much and many Adelaide passengers currently fly via Melbourne but there's no way the reverse will be true in 20 years).

It isn't that signicant acquisition of land would be needed for another full length ADL runway, it's that building it would be environmentally unacceptable. But as much of the growth is going to be in regional aircraft that don't need a full length runway, that doesn't matter.

Nort wrote:If Adelaide has expanded to the point where the current site is insufficient then it would probably make more sense to have a second airport built rather than entirely moving the existing one.

True, and IIRC there was some land near Two Wells set aside for that purpose.